Mask Market by Andrew Vachss Page A

hunting.
    I knew I could find Beryl’s house again. I probably couldn’t give directions, but, soon as I started driving, the sense impressions would flood my screen and guide me, the way they always do.
    The Plymouth wasn’t the correct ride for where I had to go. Clarence had what I needed—an immaculate, restored-to-new ’67 Rover 2000TC, in classic British Racing Green. Just the kind of expensive toy someone in Beryl’s father’s neighborhood would have for Sunday drives. But Clarence was as likely to allow his jewel out in this weather as Mama was to file a legitimate tax return.
    I could get something out of the Mole’s junkyard, but he specialized in shark cars—grayish, anonymous prowlers that no witness would be able to recall. Except that what blended into the city would stand out in the suburbs.
    Renting was always an option, but I hated to burn a whole set of expensive ID just for a couple of hours’ use.
    So I made a phone call.
    “Hauser,” was all the greeting I got.
    “It’s me,” I said.
    “Whatever you want, the answer is—”
    “You still leave your car at the station when you take the train in to work?”
    “Yeah…” he said, warily.
    “I’d like to borrow it. Just take it out of the lot, use it for a couple of hours, put it right back.”
    “Use it for what?” Hauser demanded. I’ve known him a long time; it wasn’t so much that he gave a damn, it was that being a reporter was encoded in his genes, and he always needed to know the story.
    “I have to visit someone tomorrow. Not in your neighborhood, but close by. I’m looking for a runaway.” Only the very best liars know how to mix a heavy dose of truth into their stories. And which buttons to push. Like I said, Hauser knew me going all the way back. And he has a couple of teenage sons.
    “It’ll be there when I get back?”
    “Guaranteed,” I promised. I’m the rarest of professional liars—unless you’re the one I’m playing, my word is twenty-five-karat.
     
    T he next morning, I was riding the Metro-North line, one of a mass of reverse-commuters heading out of the city. The car was about three-quarters full. I sat across from a scrawny, intense-looking man with short, carelessly cropped, no-color hair, indoor skin, and palsied hands. A pair of tinted trifocals dominated his taut, narrow face. Behind them, his eyes were the color of a manila envelope. He looked me over like a junkie who’s afraid of needles, his need fighting his fear.
    The two of us were probably the only ones in the car not jabbering into cell phones. The fool next to me, clearly annoyed that the racket might actually render his own conversation private, compensated by damn near shouting the “Just checking in!” opening he’d already used half a dozen times in a row. Some of the howler monkeys tried to sound businesslike, asking if there had been any calls—apparently not —but most of them dropped the pretense and just blabbered what they thought was important-sounding crap. They weren’t talking, they were fucking broadcasting—using volume as signal strength. We were all captives.
    I caught the paranoid’s eye, made a “What can you do?” face. He studied me for a split second, then nodded down at the thick briefcase he had across his knees and twisted his lips a millimeter.
    The fool next to me said, “Hello. Hell -o !” before pushing a button on his phone to disconnect. He hit another button—my money was on “redial”—then stared blankly at the little screen, as if it would explain some deep mystery. All over the train car, people were shouting into their phones but not getting a response.
    “Dead zone,” I heard someone say, smugly. “We’ll pass through it in a minute.”
    I locked eyes with the paranoid across from me long enough to realize that the smug guy had it all wrong. Portable cell-phone jammers are expensive—good ones go for a couple of grand—but they’re a reasonable investment for a lunatic who